China Rides
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After living in Shanghai for two years and enjoying the service of cheaper-than-chocolate-bar taxis, I decided to go native and get a bicycle- a big step for a girl who was once run over on a bicycle by a tow truck.
Everyone told me that the cheapest place to buy a bicycle was Carrefour, and my co-worker/ friend Francis and I headed out to Carrefour Shanghai in his shiny electric Blue car. This car is so blue I can’t even describe it accurately. Like ultramarine blue straight out of the tube- easily spotted when waiting curbside. Once we got there, we spent a few minutes checking out the long lines of shiny new bicycles. Francis was looking for quality. I was looking for cute and cheap. We were both looking for one that would fit in the back seat of big shiny blue.
I found one- cute little navy blue granny bike with retro handle bars and funky lines. It was called a “SanSi- Exquisite Article Bicycle.” “Francis, how can you translate SanSi?” I asked. Francis cruised over all of the Chinese written on the bike and said, “I don’t know,- the Chinese characters here are hard to translate into English.” “It must mean three-four.” Francis shrugged. “Or Three-Death.” Anyone’s guess was as good as ours in China!
I paid thirty Canadian bucks for Three-Death. Brand new. Including the lock. Francis advised me, “Get the cheapest lock you can. Then the thieves will see you don’t value this bicycle and they won’t steal it.”
My first day on my bike I rode down Fuxing Road to Xintiandi, where I was doing a yoga workshop. I realized right away that my bike was uncomfortably small. Ooops. I must have looked like a giant on it. And it squeaked and creaked like an old bike. Comparing my tires to others on the road I realized I had to peddle twice as fast as everyone else since mine were that much smaller. Cute as it was, my new bike didn’t seem very practical.
But all of a sudden a new world in the midst of this city opened up to me. I felt like I was on vacation. I never realized that in those taxis I missed the chance to be fully immersed in the local Chinese world. At every intersection I stopped with local Chinese on the oldest, rustiest, ricketiest bicycles. Some had chickens- still alive and tied upside down to the rack on the back. Some were peddling around huge amounts of water bottles. Others looked like they were moving house with stacks of personal items tied and bungee corded onto all parts of their two or three wheels motorless vehicles. Some say the Chinese are not a creative bunch- and I would largely agree with that- until you see the ways they pack crap on their bikes.
They checked me over. I checked them over. We all continued, a solid mass protecting each other from oncoming traffic as long as we stuck to the pack. Some Shanghainese cyclists adopted the “early bird catches the worm”: mentality and zoomed off into the oncoming traffic, dodging cars like players in a video game. I tended to stay back with the old ladies, adopting the mentality of “The tallest dandelion is the first to get its head chopped off by the lawn mower.” -More suitable for cycling in a communist country anyway.
Either way, it was everyman for himself. I quickly realized that as a cyclist, I was one up on the food chain. Allowed to ride on sidewalks, I could “bell” pedestrians out of my way- Something that as a western pedestrian really annoyed me. They gave way to me! And since everyone on a bicycle consistently breaks the traffic rules, I tended to get to my destinations faster than a car would. Cut someone off on the sidewalk? They were used to it. No one seemed to get that angry. Caught doing something illegal by a traffic man? Chances are he didn’t speak English and I could feign lack of language skills as he blew his whistle and shouted “Xiaojie! (Miss!)" Ooooh. Yes. Guilty as charged. What’s that? You talking to me? Me and the three others who broke the same law would feign stupidity and deafness and ride on.
Riding a bicycle in Shanghai is another opportunity for me to study the differences between our cultures. In North America in general, people take bikes seriously as a form of exercise. We wear our helmets because it’s the law. We ride fast. We sweat. We even sometimes buy cycling outfits full of lycra and spandex, or breathable rainproof gear dripping with reflective tape. Our outfits scream, “I’m fast, cool, and ultra-safe.” We make environmental statements pointing out how we choose a bike over a car because it’s better for the environment. All of these things are good things.
The Shanghai cyclist mosies along. They ride at a slow comfortable pace to avoid sweating in their work clothes. Helmets? That would make your head sweat. Why bother? Pants problem? Just tuck them into your socks. Or roll them up if you’re wearing flip flops. In Shanghai, if you are a woman cyclist, you need to avoid the sun at all costs. This means wearing a kind of visor popular in the eighties- remember the kind? With the see through brim made of plastic? Well make the brim a foot long and cover your whole face to resemble a honey harvester or something. Better yet, if you wore a short sleeved top to work, you ought to wear arm condoms to keep your arms from turning a healthy shade of brown.
And if you are a man, you defiantly need flip flops and a cigarette. Biking and chain smoking go hand in hand. If it’s raining, its best to go with a raincoat that will fit over you and most of your bike, and make you look like a large duck. Or you could ride one handed, holding an umbrella. I realized I had gone native when I found one handed umbrella riding quite convenient and didn’t feel the least bit silly doing it. If you don't have a raincoat or an umbrella, a shower cap or even a plastic bag- handles looped around your ears will do as a make shift rain hat. I'm not kidding.
Riding down the street the first day I got Three-Death, I ran over a very dead rat, some watermelon rinds, and a man’s toe. Yes, a man’s toe. Luckily for him it was still attached to his body, and though he gave me a very dirty look, he forgave me once he realized my peddle had come completely off hence the momentary loss of control. I parked the bike and had to try to reattach it. It seems that peddles here screw in, and mine had been screwed in the wrong way, so they loosened instead of tightened. “A Chinese make work project!” I thought. No wonder there were bicycle fix it guys on every corner! 
Fix-It Guy- I don’t know his name, but he once helped me break down my front door when the lock froze up for some reason. Since then, we smile and wave each time I pass. In three months, he fixed both peddles, readjusted the seat, replaced the whole front axel (who would have known the front tire didn’t have ball bearings?!!) and fixed a flat tire. Every time I would stop, he would say, “This bike is really bad. It’s really crap. How much did you pay for it? You should hope someone steals it so you can buy a better one.”
Every morning as I came to the bike rack to unlock Three-Death, Garbage Lady would wave and say Ni Hao, Like we always do. Garbage Lady is really like a recycling lady who goes though everything in your garbage to see if there is anything she can sell to get money for. She is a whole new story on her own. Every morning she would point to my bike and give me the thumbs up signal. I think her intent was to say, “Hey, good for you! It’s the Shanghainese way of getting around- you’ve gone native now!” but I personally like to think she was saying, “Hey! Thanks for buying a shitty bicycle. It’s only got a few more weeks left at the most. When it packs it in, Give it to me! I can get a good price at the scrap yard!”
Fix-It Guys’ wish came true and someone did steal Three-Death. I parked it at the metro station under the watchful eye of an attendant in the middle of the afternoon. Gone. I laughed. That bike was so bad the thief probably saved me from certain death. Bikes are stolen so much around here you need to think of them as being rented, really. I joke with friends and call it the Shanghai tax. You never know when the tax man will call on you, in the form of ripping off your wallet, bag, I-pod etc. In yoga, it’s a good way to practice detachment from material objects.
I did replace Three-Death with a beautiful but cheap periwinkle blue granny bike from the giant store. With the locks, it cost me about 500 RMB. It lasted about eight riding days altogether before it was stolen outside the yoga studio. Shite. Bad mood. I promptly went out and bought the black version of bike #2. This way I wouldn’t moan and complain to myself every time I had to walk somewhere. I got super locks this time! Let’s see how long this one lasts.
Some of my friends think I’m insane to keep buying bikes when they get stolen so much. But the truth is, It’s a special kind of freedom to ride a bike here. I feel like I’m part of the local crowd- breaking out of the expat bubble that many foreigners learn to be content in while living here in Shanghai. I save money on taxis (that I can later spend on bicycles) and I actually get around much quicker. Shanghai is set up with bike lanes- keeping us largely separated from the traffic so really I feel it’s much safer to ride a bike here than in Canada. Strangely enough, just the bird’s eye view of being off the sidewalk allows me to feel like I’m experiencing a whole new city.
And I get to have a reason to practice my rudimentary Chinese on people like Garbage Lady and Fix It Guy- though with my new Giant I have very little reason to stop to visit him now, so we are back to smiles and waves. Oh well. I’m sure if my new locks ward the thieves away for at least a decent amount of time, I’ll pop a tire or two and we may just get another chance at a chat.